Western Grey Kangaroo
The western grey kangaroo (Macropus fuliginosus), also referred to as a black-faced kangaroo, mallee kangaroo, and sooty kangaroo, is a large and very common kangaroo found across almost the entire southern part of Australia, from just south of Shark Bay to coastal South Australia, Western Australia, western Victoria, and the entire Murray–Darling basin in New South Wales and Queensland. Long known to the Aboriginal Australians, for Europeans, the western grey kangaroo was the centre of a great deal of sometimes comical taxonomic confusion for almost 200 years. It was first noted by European explorers when Matthew Flinders landed on Kangaroo Island in 1802. Flinders shot several for food but assumed that they were eastern grey kangaroos. In 1803, French explorers captured several Kangaroo Island western grey kangaroos and shipped them to Paris, where they lived in the Ménagerie du Jardin des Plantes for some years. Eventually, researchers at the Paris Museum of Natural History recognised that these animals were indeed distinct from the eastern grey kangaroo and formally described the species as Macropus fuliginosus in 1817. For reasons that remain unclear, the species was incorrectly described as native to Tasmania. There the matter rested for over 100 years, and it was not until 1917 that researchers realized that the "forester kangaroo" of Tasmania was in fact Macropus giganteus, the same eastern grey kangaroo that was, and still is, widespread in the southeastern part of the mainland. By 1971, it was understood that the Kangaroo Island kangaroo belonged to the same species as the kangaroos of southern and Western Australia, and that this population extended through much of the eastern part of the continent as well (see range map). For a time, three subspecies were described, two on the mainland and one on Kangaroo Island. The current classification scheme emerged in the 1990s. The western grey kangaroo is not found in the north or the southeast of Australia, and the eastern grey does not extend beyond the New South Wales–South Australia border, but the two species are both common in the Murray–Darling basin area. They never interbreed in the wild, although it has proved possible to produce hybrids between eastern grey females and western grey males in captivity. Gallery Microsoft-Edge-Web-Notes-The-Wiggl3723506156.jpg IMG 8314.JPG Grey Kangaroo.PNG Agent K.jpg western-grey-kangaroo-zootycoon3.png|Zoo Tycoon: Ultimate Animal Collection (2017) Star meets Western Grey Kangaroo.png 264CBB5B-68CE-4553-BFC7-F2A93659102A.jpeg 849050EE-6071-4928-85B0-FFD8986C4B7E.jpeg 0FE306BD-29A7-470B-B15A-B32AC968FB6E.jpeg 02041C6A-CD95-4E44-8448-3ED19F30655A.jpeg 2CAC5461-35B7-43D7-A072-FE01DFBE383A.jpeg B5CD8B5F-2857-4495-9236-CAB72E792080.jpeg 5016CF0B-507A-4EAE-AA64-0099A18AA696.jpeg Western Gray Kangaroo.jpg Brookfield Zoo Kangaroos.png San Diego Zoo Safari Park Kangaroo.png Cleveland Metroparks Zoo Kangaroo.png G-1941-04-18-kangaroo01.png Family Guy Kangaroo.png Rileys Adventures Western Grey Kangaroo.jpg Green_kangaroo.png|Sly 3: Honor Among Thieves (2003) Riley and Elycia meets Western Grey Kangaroo.jpg See Also * Red Kangaroo * Eastern Grey Kangaroo * Antilopine Kangaroo Category:Characters Category:Animals Category:Australian Animals Category:Marsupials Category:Wonder Zoo Animals Category:Horton Hears a Who! Animals Category:Brookfield Zoo Animals Category:National Zoo Animals Category:Toronto Zoo Animals Category:Basel Zoo Animals Category:Exmoor Zoo Animals Category:Kangaroos Category:Australia Zoo Animals Category:64 Zoo Lane Animals Category:Winnie the Pooh Animals Category:Phineas and Ferb Animals Category:Encyclopedia Of Animals Animals Category:DK Encyclopedia Of Animals Animals Category:Flying Frogs and Walking Fish Animals Category:Marcus Pfister's Animal ABC Animals Category:Reader's Digest Fascinating World of Animals Animals Category:The Great Animal Search Animals Category:Usborne World Wildlife Animals Category:Usborne World Wildlife: Grassland Wildlife Animals Category:The Wiggles Animals Category:Chalkzone Animals Category:Zoo Tycoon Animals Category:Visual Dictionary of Animals Animals Category:Ed, Edd n Eddy Animals Category:Potter Park Zoo Animals Category:Family Guy Animals Category:Sly Cooper Animals Category:Riley's Adventures Animals